Who do you think deserves a street named after them?

I’d always wondered what Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett might look like draped in confetti and streamers, dodging giant balloons with a distinct look of fear (or was it simply confusion?) in his eyes. This morning, I found out.

I skipped out of work for a little while to go to the official Flaming Lips Alley dedication ceremony. Since I apparently work with a bunch of losers too uncool to find such a one-of-a-kind event interesting, I went alone.

There was a stage set up in front of the ballpark with all the usual Flaming Lips accouterments – dancing Santas and Alien Girls, giant blow-up suns and butterflies, massive balloons bouncing overhead, and confetti, confetti, confetti. The only thing that made this different from a Lips show was the presence of several buttoned-up types on the stage.

One of these buttoned-up types (I believe it was State Treasurer Scott Meacham) read a Governor’s Commendation in honor of the occasion. He took great pains to inform us that he and Brad Henry were both big Lips fans, and that the Chamber of Commerce and City Council would blow us all away with their coolness.

Okay.

Wayne and Co. were presented with a giant Flaming Lips snow globe (which was pretty freaking cool) and the Flaming Lips Alley street sign. Wayne spoke for awhile, and was as funny and charming and humble as usual. (It was also a lot of fun to scan the reactions of the Important Statespeople every time he dropped an F-bomb.)

Then, we all shuffled over to the actual Flaming Lips Alley, for ribbon-cutting and more pictures of Wayne and Mick Cornett beneath the Flaming Lips Alley sign. More confetti.

Afterwards, Wayne hung around to sign autographs. As I’d idiotically forgotten to bring a CD or DVD with me, and the line before me was massive, I headed back to the office with streamers in my hair and confetti inside my coat (and even down the front of my shirt).

My stupid coworkers don’t know what they missed.

(Check out OklahomaRock.com for some cool Wayne video.)

Mr. Hill recently posted about snobbery, or lack thereof, coming from the guys doing local restaurant reviews over at EatAroundOKC.com. Strangely enough, I first stumbled over this site yesterday when trying to find some info on the Saturn Grill. I don’t care so much whether they’re snobs or not, so long as they can offer some insight into the local restaurant scene.

To that end, Two-Headed Blog also recently discovered OKCBites (this site appears to be down at the time of this posting). These guys are offering up a similar look at the local cuisine scene. As an added bonus, one of their reviewers is a vegetarian. Since these two heads don’t eat meat, this is a welcome perspective.

When we first registered the Two-Headed Blog domain name we couldn’t pass up the offer for a free second domain name. So, we chose the now defunct eatingokc.com. We went to a handful of places, ate and/or drank, and wrote up some reviews. But, like many things we start, we didn’t keep it up. This blog was enough (I tend to surround myself with many things, rather than one thing I can do well). Plus, going vegetarian seemed to limit the options somewhat. Still, it was something that we gave a lot of thought to, and spent quite a bit of time on initially.

So, it is with this limited and unqualified experience that I offer up a couple of suggestions for the aforementioned local food reviewers:

• Give me an alphabetical listing of the restaurants you reviewed. I’d like a concise list of where you’ve been and what you’ve reviewed. It’s not so bad now…but when the reviews start piling up, it’s going to be too tedious (for me anyway) to just browse.
• What about cross-categorizing according to location (e.g. Downtown, SW, NW, Edmond, etc.)?
• If you’re going to take photographs, please don’t use the camera on your cell phone. I appreciate the effort, but the poor quality of the images reminds me of the Acuña Mexican restaurant featured in Grindhouse (not at all appetizing or inspiring).

With that being said, I wish both much luck and I very much look forward to reading what they’ve already reviewed and also what awaits. My palate waters for future posts.

Itchy

It all started with one tiny bump. One tiny, pink bump, almost imperceptible to the eye. It itched, this bump on my lower back. The more I scratched it, the more it seemed to itch. At first I thought it was a spider bite, since I’d seen several large arachnid critters roaming around the house in recent days. Sometimes, I envisioned them marching across my face as I slept – their long, spindly legs intertwining with my hair as if part of a perverse, interspecies mating ritual. I imagined them crawling under the sheets with me, wandering aimlessly across my back.

I twitch slightly in my sleep. The spider attacks.

The next day, there were more bumps. Three on my upper back, between my shoulder blades. Four more on my lower stomach. And they itched – oh, did they itch. Later that evening, the back of my right thigh began to itch, as well. The bumps itched when I didn’t scratch; they itched even more when I did. Confusion set in. How could I have been attacked by so many spiders, all at once? Was it a concerted, strategic effort on their part to take me down? Were their tiny little spider brains capable of such a diabolical plan?

Perhaps it was fleas. But unlike the spiders, I’d never spotted a flea inside the house.

The day after that, there were even more bumps. Bumps on my chest and on my shoulders. More bumps on my stomach – so many now that they resembled a small, pink constellation of stars. I took a black marker and connected the bumps to one another, creating random patterns on my skin.

I’m scratching myself constantly now, unable to find relief. I writhe in my seat, attempting to scratch my back, my legs and my chest simultaneously. I moan as tears flow down my cheeks. Why is this happening to me? Can’t the itching go away? Just for a moment? I have never known such torture.

Maybe the bumps are hives. Or symptoms of the new, antibiotic-resistant strain of staph infection I’d heard about on the morning news. They’d said symptoms often resembled spider bites. I’m scared now. Scared of the spiders. Scared of the deadly infection that is coursing through my bloodstream. I look at the inside of my elbow. The fine blue web of veins seems darker than normal – so pronounced that the veins appear to burst out through my skin, taunting me with their frailty.

My skin is crawling now. Tiny invisible legs are tickling me. I scratch.

Nothing.

I scratch harder, more persistently, my fingernails digging deep into my side.

I feel something wet. I lift up my shirt to see a tiny trickle of blood and pus coursing from beneath my bra. The crawling sensation grows stronger. Crawling on my skin. Crawling in my skin. Twitching and crying, I struggle to scratch my entire body at once.

Scratchscractchscratchscratch.

Still nothing. The itch continues. Between my toes, in my ears – even my hair feels itchy. There’s nothing in my world right now except the itch. I can’t tell if minutes have passed, or if it’s been hours.

I decide to take a shower.

I rub a roughly-textured bath sponge over my body. The combination of that and the hot water pulsing down upon my back briefly alleviates my agony. I look down to see that my legs are dotted with tiny, red bumps, each one a tiny, sadistic master. Dark, ugly bruises cover my hips and stomach – deep shades of red and blue mingled together in a mottled starburst pattern. The water in the bottom of the bathtub is tinted a pale pink.

I can’t tell where the blood is coming from.

As I dry off, I look in the mirror and notice that my face has become one big blotch of itchiness. I look over my shoulder and see that blood is trickling down my back in a thousand little rivers. And still there is the itch.

Always the itch.

Oh, Jesus.

I collapse onto the floor.

The spiders are crawling over me now. There are dozens – no, hundreds of them. They’re digging in with their tiny legs, tickling me. Tormenting me. Trying to get underneath my skin. Trying to get in my veins. I’ve given up scratching now. It does no good. I’m outnumbered. Holding my arms out before me, I watch them wiggle around under the skin.

I’m gonna get you, you little fuckers.

When the sharp, metal blade pierces my skin, the only thing I feel is relief.

I haven’t read Rolling Stone since college, so I was kind of looking forward to the free subscription we recently received with purchase of an iPod car adapter. However, I soon realized that the magazine is a lot different than I remember it.

Maybe my first clue was when I saw the latest cover featuring Kid Rock surrounded by adoring, barely-clad women. For starters, is Kid Rock still relevant? Was Kid Rock ever relevant? And when did Rolling Stone become Maxim?

Then I read this review of a Talib Kweli/Kanye West/Roy Ayers track:

Jazzy vibes master Ayers grooves all over ‘Ye’s sexified, blunted-out beat, making this the best Talib track since Black Star. Put this on, light some candles, slip your unit into a condom and go to work, bro. You earned it.

“Unit?” “Bro?” Seriously? Apparently, Rolling Stone has been hijacked by a mob of post-graduate frat boys who believe women are mere vessels in which to insert some dude’s becondomed “unit.” Has it never crossed their testosterone-fueled primate brains that women may actually be capable of reading, and may not appreciate (much less, be turned on by) their self-congratulatory antics?

However, there’s still a good article here and there about the Presidential race or Hunter S. Thompson, and I like finding out about new artists like Jose Gonzalez, an atheist folk singer from Sweden. I can’t wait to check out his song inspired by Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.